Science and Religion V

Don:

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.

— F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Crack-Up (1936)

Science and faith appear to be opposed ideas. Each lays claim to honesty, integrity, and “the truth.”  Science bases its claims on data and the scientific method of examining data and incorporating it into changing theory.

The essence of the scientific method is self-correction: New data automatically corrects erroneous theory based on old data and may lead to the abandonment of the old and the adoption of a revolutionary new theory, which in turn may lead to the betterment of civilization. Being wrong in science is not considered bad, because it is bound to be corrected in time.

A concept called “Big data” is a relatively new concept in science. It was made possible through the digital revolution, which has led to an exponential accumulation of data, exponential acceleration in the velocity of data, and exponential expansion in the variety of data. Such a quantitative difference in the magnitude of data quantity, velocity, and variety compared to what it was before the digital revolution is resulting in qualitative improvements in our ability understand and analyze the world and its contents, including ourselves. For instance, the human genome is now more than just a massive dataset: It is destined to become the anatomy of the future; and the epigenome—the genome as it is subjected to environmental influences—is set to become the new physiology. We may all carry our genomes around on a memory stick, and the result will be a great difference in the quality of diagnosis and treatment for what ails us.

Religion also lays claim to honesty, integrity, and truth, but it does so primarily or at least substantially by holding onto the past and by rejecting as dangerous, deceptive, and disruptive the skepticism and doubt that underlie scientific method. Religion has no method for incorporating new data, for revising and changing its thinking. Even to hint at a need for change can be and has been viewed as heretical. Religion refuses to accept that its scriptures may contain error or be outdated. There is no ongoing religious r/evolution. Why is religion, in stark contrast to science, so adamant in denying the possibility of error and the possible need for changed thinking regarding its truths?

Perhaps we need a more comprehensive understanding of the notion of the theology of “truth”—what is truth, how is it arrived at, what is its value, its utility?

The crux of problem may be that to religion, the all-important matter of “salvation” depends critically on a “proper” understanding or observing truth. In John 14:6, Jesus said: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me”; and in John 17:17: “Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth.” So Jesus links himself directly to the concept of Truth; but he does so in a way that suggests that Truth—faith in him and therefore in his Truth—is quite the opposite of big data: in Luke 17:6 Jesus said “If you had faith like a mustard seed [i.e., if you had the tiniest smidgeon of faith in the Truth that is me], you would say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and be planted in the sea’; and it would obey you.”

In writing (1 Corinthians 13:8-13)…

Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part; but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.

…Paul is saying that data big or small (tongues, knowledge, prophecy) may serve as earthly, small-t truths for us human children but cannot serve as the capital-T Truth of Faith, Hope, and above all Love in the kingdom of heaven. In John 18:36-38, as he is about to go to the cross, Jesus has this conversation with the Roman prefect Pontius Pilate:

… “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, then My servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews; but as it is, My kingdom is not of this realm.” Therefore Pilate said to Him, “So You are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say correctly that I am a king. For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.” [This is redolent of John 10:27: “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me….”] Pilate said to Him, “What is truth?”

And when he had said this, he went out again to the Jews and said to them, “I find no guilt in Him.”

Thus, Truth seems to be connected to the heart of god.

Is there anything faith can learn from science, and vice versa? Last week we discussed god’s apparent bestowal of science and the scientific method upon humanity, in Genesis. We seek understanding of the world around and we seek meaning in life, and god gave us tools for the former. But in scripture, god seldom provides answers, only more questions, to those who talk to him. Even when he does answer, he does so obtusely, such as telling Moses to say the “I Am” sent him to deliver a message.

Sylvester: It’s true that we have a pretty rigid canon of scripture, and it is not lacking in contradictions. The faithful, however confused they might be by the contradictions, just have to make the best of it. Religion lacks the objective tools that enable science to resolve its contradictions.

David: Contradiction is key! A truth that contradicts itself is by definition not a truth. “Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice” could be re-phrased: “Everyone who hears my voice knows the truth.” The question then is: Where is the voice of Jesus, of god? Is it in the contradictory canons of scripture—an external source; or is it internal, is it the “inner voice”? There is a passage in the bible [Deuteronomy 6-10] that can be construed to mean that if one’s daughter returns from a yoga class singing its praises, one is to take her outside and stone her to death. If the bible contains the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, then your daughter is doomed. But if the truth is what your heart is telling you, your daughter is safe and in god’s hands.

I believe that when Jesus talked about knowing the truth through hearing his voice he meant through hearing the inner voice, the holy spirit within each one of us. That is not a problem for faith, but it is a huge problem for religion, which depends on scripture for its authority and existence.

Kiran: We are rigid, but there has been progress or at least change—from Catholicism to Protestantism, and within protestantism from Luther to Calvin to the Presbyterians to the Adventists and so on. Changing the sabbath from Sunday to Saturday is a major deal (in religious terms) to one who reads the bible. But since so many no longer do, changing this or other beliefs only affects (and affronts and frightens) those who have already staked out a bible-based claim to “the truth.”

Alice: We don’t need changes to religion or the bible. Change has to happen inside us. We have to change, in order to hear god’s word coming from inside us. The truth exists and is complete; it is our behavior and our attitude toward it that must change in order for us to see it.

Charles: The tools of science for examining the ephemeral material world are not applicable to the eternal, transcendent realm of the spirit and faith. But we cannot help seeking understanding of both material and spiritual, and seeking is what matters. Curiosity in the scientific realm helps us by keeping alive the desire to seek, and it serves to remind us of how small we are in relation to the finite physical realm, never mind in relation to the infinitely vaster spiritual realm. Ultimately, the scientific quest seems likely to lead us to the conclusion that this vastly bigger realm must exist and therefore to the ultimate answer as to the meaning of life. The more we close the gaps in our understanding of the natural realm, the more transparent its limits, its finiteness and its transience become, and the wider the window through which we can observe the supernatural realm beyond. This is reflected in Jesus’s life, which was brief and not focused on material things but on things beyond—on love, and suffering, and so on.

So again, the tools of science may open up our general perspective but they are not directly applicable to the spiritual realm.

Sylvester: The truths that science and religion try to explain are not the same.

Robin: The truth was revealed to us through the life and words of Jesus. He was telling us that truth exists and is immutable; what changes is our understanding of it as we pray and study and live our lives and seek to know. It is good to ask what is true, rather than just accepting someone else’s version of it.

Kiran: Paul preached truth that sounded new but which in fact already existed in the Old Testament. When his audiences went back to study their bible after listening to him, they discovered this. As Robin said, the change is not in the bible, it is in our understanding of it. The bible has never said that the world is flat, but religion used to say so. Through science, our understanding has changed, but the world has not—it is and always was round.

Rachel: The truth comes from hearing the word. We have to have faith that Jesus is who he says he is. Romans 10:17: “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ..” That word does not change. Ecclesiastes 3:14: “I know that everything God does will remain forever; there is nothing to add to it and there is nothing to take from it, for God has so worked that men should fear Him.” We can neither add to the bible nor take anything away from it.

Alice: God said “I am the same today, yesterday, and tomorrow.”

Charles: Science and the scientific method are means by which humans can arrive at the truth of the way things are in the material world. The truth we seek is the meaning of the decay and death that marks the end of all physical forms, whether they be an atom, a human life, or the universe itself. John 1 says “…the Word became flesh.” Why would god become flesh himself, if not to teach us the lesson of physical impermanence. Science has given us theories of entropy and decay, of loss, limitations, and impermanence. But in saying that he was “the way, the truth, and the light” Jesus added—crucially—that he was not of this physical, material world and therefore not subject to its decay and impermanence; quite the opposite.

So by providing ever greater clarity around the limits of the material world, science helps us sentient human beings turn toward the spirit, to faith, to the truths beyond our natural limits. If there were no such truths, then life truly would seem somewhat pointless.

Sylvester: As both a scientist and a religious person, I have to choose which one to turn to for the answers to particular problems. I turn to science, not the bible, when I need help in treating a patient. But when I want to know where I came from, why I am here, what is death, and where am I going, then I turn to the bible, not to my scientific textbooks.

David: Scientific method might not have much to teach with regard to the supernatural, but perhaps scientific principle does. One principle is humility. Good science and good scientists are humble enough to lay no claim to truth. Scientific method never proves a theory—it only tends to support or refute theory by proving the negation of the theory (the “null hypothesis”). In this manner, science peels back the onion of truth layer by layer but offers no guarantee that it can ever, even in principle, reach the final layer of skin.

There is no such humility in religion. Perhaps there should be. Neither science nor religion can, even in principle, tell us what happened before the origin of everything, before the beginning of time. Neither can show a shred of evidence, never mind prove, that there was a god or that there was not a god before the beginning of time.

Don: We will discuss the concept of “Truth” next week.

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